Question on keeping plastic water tank fresh..

Anything to do with camping, fundamentals, secrets, etc...

Use Reverse Osmosis aka "RO"purified water

Postby artfd » Fri May 25, 2012 12:37 pm

This has been sold from coin machine dispensers in my town for over 25 years. I started buying it for my late mother, who kept getting diarrhea. I discovered that putting my town's tap water in a sterilized plastic bottle, corking it, and letting it sit for 3-4 days at room temperature produced a greenish liquid that smelled of sewage. It was even worse if this water so bottled were put into a camper in hot weather. This was a very simple microbiology experiment that anyone can perform for themselves. It's not rocket science.
I figured that was the problem (and so it turned out to be). For a while mother boiled her tap water, cooled it and then drank it. Even that could go bad if not carefully handled. Also, about 1993 there was a major outbreak of water-borne diarrheal illness in the Milwaukee area, due to bugs modern water treatment facilities could not kill. At that time I began to think our city had a water problem -- and probably many other cities did also, whether or not the news media discuss it.
I lived in Gallup NM for a year in the 1970's, city water there regularly caused me upset stomach verging on diarrhea. Local doctors there said it was due to dissolved minerals. Then I began drinking distilled water I bought in Gallup stores, but cooked and washed with its tap water. My sister visited Gallup a few months ago & talked to the locals - they still don't drink the tap water there.
I found that putting RO water into a clean container, gave excellent results. It never spoiled unless contaminated. It has virtually nothing dissolved in it to support life forms, cause diarrhea, or stink.
I bought a 5-gal camping style water bottle, filled it as needed & kept it in the kitchen. For years that was all the plain water my mother & I drank. Her diarrheal illnesses pretty much stopped. When we went camping, I put that bottle into our vehicle and we used that.
Mother's been gone for years, but I still use this basic method, tried & true.
My local cost is 25 cents a gallon. Many Wally World stores sell same for 37 cents a gallon. Some grocery stores in Albuquerque have curbside dispensers selling it for 20 cents a gallon. There are usually other sources available on the road.
artfd
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